E-3, Thank You Very Much

Eduardo Nunez, Pinball Wizard

The Yankees-Oakland A's series this weekend has been an exciting (agita) one. Friday night's series opener saw a great pitcher's duel between CC Sabathia and Jarrod Parker that the Yankees won in extras after Rafael Soriano blew the Yankees lead in the 9th.

Saturday went a few steps further; pitching was pretty mediocre, fielding even worse (by the A's), but when it was all over that word "improbable" was being bandied about again. Hey, I even got to use the word "bandied". In the end the Yankees pulled out an "improbable" 10-9 victory in 14 innings.

The Yankees had to go to Freddy Garcia for a 4th inning of relief due to a shortened bullpen (neither Soriano or David Robertson was available). Using Garcia for that length of time is like juggling sticks of dynamite. You know that eventually it's going to go off. Just ask Arzt - "Dude, you've got some Arzt on you".

The 13th inning is when things blew up for the Yankees. Garcia gave up a 2-run home run to Jonny Gomes (who really looks like he should be a professional wrestler) and followed that up by throwing a meatball to Yoenis Cespedes for a solo home run. Back-to-back and belly-to-belly is not so much fun when it's the other team.

Joe Girardi then went to a Red Sox castoff, you notice these guys never pitch well?, Justin Thomas who gave up a solo bomb to Chris Carter for a 9-5 A's lead. With the day game turning into a night game there weren't too many people left watching for an improbable victory. For shame, for what they missed out.

A's skipper Bob Melvin went to his 7th pitcher, Pedro Figueroa, to start the bottom half of the 13th. No relation to Ed Figueroa, as far as I know, the A's reliever surrendered singles to Ichiro Suzuki, Alex Rodriguez, and Robinson Cano to load the bases with no one out. John Sterling ran another ad for "this call to the bullpen..." and Pat Neshek came on.

The one time highly regarded Minnesota Twins product immediately threw a wild pitch to cut the lead to 9-6. Eduardo Nunez followed with a sac fly that halved the deficit and brought Raul Ibanez to the plate as the tying run. Ibanez had delivered a pinch-hit home run earlier in the game, his first long ball since August 5. It wasn't hist last of the day. The veteran of 17 seasons smashed Neshek's side winder into the right field seats to tie the game at 9 apiece. What was left of the crowd went bananas...or maybe that's because liquor had been cut out six innings earlier.

Corey Wade tossed a perfect 14th to set the stage for a walk off, well more of a stumble off, victory.  Tyson Ross replaced Neshek and gave up a lead off single to Eric Chavez. Derek Jeter sacrificed pinch-runner Melky Mesa (who ever though not one, but two Melky's would play in the Majors.), which led to an intentional walk to Ichiro.

A-Rod ripped a line drive to center that was hit too hard to score Mesa, but the bases were loaded with just one out. That quickly became two outs when Cano weak grounder to the right side was fielded by Ross, who got the force out at home. But the A's, who already had two errors, thrown three wild pitches, balked, and hit a batter, were happy to oblige once more.  Nunez hit a sharp grounder that ricocheted off first baseman Branon Moss for the A's third error of the day and enabled Mesa to score the game winner, the Yankees seventh straight victory.

Notes

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, and thank you to NJ.com's Jeff Bradley, the Yankees came back from a 4-run deficit in extra innings and won for just the second time in franchise history. The firs time was back on September 17, 1980 against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Derek Jeter's 1-7 performance extended his hitting streak to 16 games, but it is now unlike the captain can catch Miguel Cabrera for the batting lead. Jeter dropped to .321 while Cabrera's 1-4 performance left him at .332. Mike Trout is in between at .325.

Steve Pearce did his best Mark Teixeira imitation yesterday, making a pair of diving stabs to save the game.